transportation
EcocentricTransportation
Battery Warning: Why Electric Vehicles Have Yet to Take Off
2011 was supposed to be the year of the electric vehicle. All kinds of people said it—including this guy. And in some ways it was. After years of anticipation—and piles of presumptuous magazine stories and unending …
EcocentricWeather
How Airplanes Can Make It Rain
If you’ve ever looked up at the sky when you hear the hum of an airplane, chances are you’ve seen the channels, streaks, and halos that sometimes pattern the sky in the aircraft’s wake. These cloud constellations can happen because of temperature changes as airplanes pass through certain clouds, as we learned in 2010. But this …
EcocentricOil
The Real Price of Gasoline
I’m on a deadline today for the magazine (that thing that shows up sometimes at your house), so blogging is going to brief. But wanted to link to a neat video from the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) on the true price of gas. CIR tallies up the environmental, climate, health and security costs of a single gallon of gasoline, …
EcocentricTransportation
Transportation: The White House Puts Out Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy Vehicles
Though Congress has been (self-)stymied on climate change this term, the Obama Administration has taken steps of its own to deal with rising U.S. carbon emissions. And nowhere have they been more aggressive than in promoting—mandating, really—better fuel efficiency on our roads, as I wrote earlier this month:
…
EcocentricOil
Energy: The Government Looks to Raise Fuel Economy Standards
Environmentalists can take President Obama to task for more than a few disappointments over the first two years of his Administration—and some of them have—but one area where the White House has fulfilled its green pledges is in auto fuel efficiency. In May 2009 Obama brokered a deal with the auto industry that saw Corporate Average …
EcocentricUncategorized
Energy: Why the U.S. Isn’t a Better Place
Ask Shai Agassi how his electric transportation startup Better Place is doing, and the Israeli-American entrepreneur will offer up an endless supply of good stories. The company’s trial in Tokyo—running several electric taxis in the Japanese capital, which can recharge and switch their batteries at a Better Place station—was recently …